Connecticut extends Obamacare deadline after rejecting Obama decision

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy told newspaper editors Friday afternoon that Connecticut will extend its deadline for signing up for 2014 health insurance coverage under Obamacare from Dec. 15 to Dec 23 and will “embed” state health insurance exchange staff in private insurance companies to help the thousands of residents whose policies have been canceled with the approach of the new law.

Malloy said Connecticut is different than other states in that it had stronger regulations and higher standards on private health insurance programs before the passage of the federal Affordable Care Act.

“Connecticut has not allowed trash policies to be sold,” he said. “We’ve held our insurers to very high standards.”

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Malloy said that his office, Access Health CT, the insurance “exchange” Connecticut set up to implement Obamacare, and the state insurance department have been working with the big health insurance providers in Connecticut on what to do. All agreed that Connecticut should reject Obama’s decision to backtrack.

“We’ve convinced (the insurance companies) to bend over backwards to help their clients,” Malloy said. “And they have a vested interest in doing that. They’d like to keep this business. They’d like to write (new) policies for these same folks.”

He said Connecticut’s implementation of health care reform shouldn’t suffer from bad policies in other states or poor implementation by the federal government.

“No one has done a better job than Connecticut,” Malloy said. “What frustrates me is I don’t get as much credit for doing it right as (President Obama) gets criticism for screwing it up.”

He said he “sent someone far calmer than I am,” the state’s insurance commissioner, to Washington to meet with the White House about Connecticut’s frustration with the implementation.

“Frankly, there’s no reason for anyone in the state of Connecticut to be uninsured on Jan. 1,” Malloy said. “I’m not sure the president was aware that some states are far better prepared.”

He said that some people will be paying “a little more” next year than they did prior to Obamacare, but that they would have ended up paying more regardless of health reform efforts.